On the Suarez forum there is a great thread on this subject...I will post excerpts:

1.

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Avoidance is generally considered to be the greatest of all the martial arts, and the most important. Avoidance implies action taken as a result of awareness. We spend a lot of time discussing awareness, techniques, practices, etcetera, but almost no time on the resultant action.

The biggest key to successful avoidance may not be awareness per se, but rather the instant action necessary after you become aware of a problem.

You plan to gas up at your favorite gas station. As you pull in you notice two cars and a half dozen bangers standing around as they gas up. That’s just wrong, but your ego-involvement to your plan makes it very difficult to swing right on through and out of the gas station without hesitation, never looking back.

Even the lowest level of relationship is difficult to let go of…an exchange of hard-eyed looks on the street is a relationship. How many can drop it immediately and look on to the next one? No second glance, no looking back, just drop, instantly, completely.

Just try practicing “one strike and you’re out” for a day or so and you will see how difficult this really is. Yet all of the awareness on earth is meaningless unless at the first hint of a problem you will act immediately, decisively and without looking back.

That is it for me. My logic tells me its not worth it but my heart tells me not to be the "pumpkin boy". By allowing the banger to stare me down or make me "run" makes me feel as if I were not a man. I know this is not true though. There are some things worth not letting go and each of us needs to decide what those things are for each of us today. If we can solidify it in our minds right now what is worth holding on to, then it will make it easier to let go of those things that are not.

Good post Marcus, and so true indeed. We often see examples of this on the forums.

It really is all about self esteem and manly pride, which is misconstrued at times of lurking danger_ impending danger_overshadowing tactical rsponse.

Say some moron jumps out of his car and starts berating you for some reason,the first compelling instinct for many of us is step out of our car and confront the idiot and maybe give him a dose of OC spray. But then think of the consequences, and whether that was a real good reason to have to face them.

It is all about practicing your version of a 'line in the sand'_

All of us can have our our egos hurt by being insulted/embarrassed about some aspect of ourselves in which we place our pride.

So deeply ingrained into our society is this misandric concept of the "fragile male ego", that people generally use the phrase "male ego" as an insult unto itself.

It is the foolhardy, harebrained, imprudent, pompous individual, with delusions of grandeur, with no real concept of what is about to rain down on his head that fails to walk away or keep his mouth shut when that is the smart thing to do.

I remember at least three "major" situations I "let it go". Twice in bars in China, once late at night in a downtown San Francisco street. Although they were probably the best decision at the time, somehow years later it still bothers me that I didn't go Rambo on them. May be I should've, but, may be it was best I didn't, but-- but---. Sometimes doing the "right" thing isn't quite as simple as just doing it and sometimes it is not quite so easy to forget or rationalize, for all the self-questioning reasons mentioned in this forum.

There are no easy answers to this type of situation that for so many of us has happened or happens with frequency.

When it does and it is reflected upon later…one wonders what it was that triggered that event, was it a 'certain image' we projected? Was it the way we looked? What we were wearing? What we were doing/saying?

The possibilities are infinite, and the aftermath, whether we engaged or chose to ignore…can haunt us forever.

A review of Mas Ayoob book…'in the gravest extreme' states as follows

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What I found interesting is that the author repeatedly states that it is preferable to avoid situations where one would have to use a defensive firearm. That is stated throughout the book. And he backs that up with situations where one could be charged with various degrees of murder, manslaughter, etc. For example, you're walking down the street and someone insults you. Do you get into it with them, or just keep going? He explains that since you are carrying a firearm, it is your responsibility to avoid having to use it, if possible. So getting into an argument with some punk because he called you a name, which could escalate into something which might cause you to draw your weapon, must be avoided. Legally, it could be devastating.

If you carry any kind of deadly weapon on you, it might or it really should act as a calming effect on your emotional triggers.

The theory behind self defense or street survival, inherent in any martial arts practice, for example, is one of minimizing the risks in the big bad world. But we know that in most cases, just because we are supposedly pretty good at our practice, we find it difficult to walk away from situations where you want to teach some bastard a lesson and knock him to the ground bleeding from every hole he's got. So we think regardless of the consequences to us.

The punk/s bitch slapped your self esteem and you want to shove a dead rat down his throat.This is the emotional highjack taking over, and a very powerful force that negates the unintended consequences.

But now, if you are carrying a pistol in your pocket, you can hide behind the emotional fence between you and the emerging highjack, by thinking that you have the capability of killing or rendering the punk/s a quad, simply by pulling the trigger of your pistol a few times.

See very vividly the punk rotting in a pine box down a six foot hole in the ground, then see yourself grabbing the prison bars you will find in your hands like magic…and it becomes a bit easier to walk away.

And when the walking away keeps bothering you in the future, you keep bringing the same pictures to mind.

Thank you, Van, those were probably the exact reasons I "let go". May be the fear that I might ended up the one down a six foot hole was also a reason and which you so kindly did not mention.

Life seems to be full of regrets that I have learned to or tried to "let go"--- people I offended (this is very hard to let go), money I blew (no, there aren't plenty more where they came from), bad things I did, women slipped away from my palm (stupid me), etc etc. so letting some punks get away without breaking their face should really be at the bottom of the list of things that bother me, if it should even be on the list at all.

Henry, it will never get easy, it's the male mating ritual, the monkey dance. A male dominance game. we play it even when there is no females to mate. Always tough to respond with logic when we just want the primal brain to take over, good on you! But we will always feel guilty for not responding....go hit the bag!

Life seems to be full of regrets that I have learned to or tried to "let go"--- people I offended (this is very hard to let go), money I blew (no, there aren't plenty more where they came from), bad things I did, women slipped away from my palm (stupid me), etc etc. so letting some punks get away without breaking their face should really be at the bottom of the list of things that bother me, if it should even be on the list at all.

This is an excellent observation, Henry, because it is the reality of life most of us try to sweep under the rug but never succeed.

“The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” ~ Unknown

Here is something helpful

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We all have something stored in our memory banks of the past that we wish we could have done differently, or something we wish we didn’t do.As we get older we learn and grow. But that doesn’t mean we have to regret what we did before we learned how to do things differently. If we didn’t go through those experiences we might not have grown into the strong and knowledgeable people we are today.So what I’m proposing is that we get rid of the negative thoughts—the could have’s, might have’s, and should have’s—and start living a life that won’t make us feel regretful. Not even at an older, wiser age.

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